He shouted to me, “Good luck, Brigid!” Then he climbed back down.
The blades whirled, and the helicopter vibrated. In the moment before we left the ground, I looked down at the mob surrounding Zuberi. He was bloodied, and the crowd was still beating him, shouting and throwing rocks at him.
Just when I thought they had killed him, a man in a blue shirt turned Zuberi over so that he was lying faceup, then used the stock of Zuberi’s own gun to break his knees.
Zuberi was rolling from side to side in agony when two American soldiers jerked him up off the ground and dragged him toward another helicopter.
The chopper I was in lifted.
We were peeling off when a flickering movement on the side of the street caught my attention. It was Kwame.
He was waving good-bye.
Chapter 45
ONCE WE were airborne, I slipped into a kind of shock.
Within a ridiculously short period of time, I’d been terrified, humiliated, and bloodied, and now I had been officially kidnapped. I didn’t know where I was going or even if our military had the right to take me out of Magwi.
What now?
I shivered in Kwame’s shirt and the remains of my raincoat as the helicopter delivered me to the Juba airport. A jeep was waiting, and the chopper pilot handed me off to the driver, a U.S. Air Force lieutenant named Karen Triebel. She gave me a temporary American passport and a knapsack, and as she drove to the terminal, she told me that the knapsack contained a tracksuit, a bottle of Advil, bandages, and a tube of triple-antibiotic ointment.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” she said.
“I’ve got this,” I told her.
Still, she accompanied me to a ladies’ room inside the terminal, where I washed my wounds and tossed my ripped clothing into the trash, an unceremonious conclusion to my last four months in South Sudan.
Within the hour, Lieutenant Triebel and I were streaking toward Entebbe, Uganda. There, we boarded another flight, this one bound for the U.S. Air Force base in Ramstein, Germany.
I slept hard on the plane and had violent dreams that I couldn’t remember whenever I was awoken to eat. I had no appetite for food. Instead, I looked out at the clouds and formed the thought, Lord? Was this Your plan?
Even if I had been delusional when I’d last “spoken” with God, I wanted to feel His presence again. But all I heard was my own anxious chatter visiting every front: past, present, and unknowable future. Where am I going? What will happen next?
Lieutenant Triebel had shaken out her hair and was putting on a sleep mask when I touched her arm.
“Brigid. You okay?”
I asked, “What will happen to Zuberi?”
She said, “I don’t know. Maybe he’ll fall out of a helicopter. Or maybe that just wouldn’t be bad enough for that bastard.”
Twelve hours after we left Uganda, we landed at Ramstein. Lieutenant Triebel accompanied me to the base hospital, where I was kept overnight for observation. In the morning, the doctor said, “Surprisingly, you’re good to go.”
Triebel and I were driven to a square, stucco-faced house within rows of identical houses close to the base. I was given a key to the upstairs apartment, and Triebel had the apartment below.
“Right now, my job is all about you,” she said, turning the key in the lock. “Whatever you need, I’ll do my best to make it happen. Tomorrow, you need to brief some government men on whatever you know about Zuberi. After that, just do what makes you happy. Here’s a tablet and a phone, Brigid. Call someone you love.”
Chapter 46
I CALLED Tori, my dear school friend, living with her husband in Rome.
As soon as I heard her sweet voice, I broke down.
I burbled into the mouthpiece about the crucifix she had given me, how the chain had stopped the blade at my neck. She got the gist of what had gone down and comforted me. Her husband, Marty, got on the phone after that and said, “You should get a medal. Or a town named after you. Brigidsville.”
Finally, I laughed.
Then Marty said, “Zachary is in New York. You want his number? Or should I give him yours?”
I called and got Zach’s outgoing voice mail.
“I’m on assignment in New York. Leave a message, and I’ll call back.”
I spoke into my phone: “Yank. It’s Red. I’m in Ramstein, Germany, calling to say hello.”
I was both disappointed and relieved that Zach hadn’t answered, but he called back at three in the morning his time.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I was kicked out of Africa for my own good,” I told him.
“I’ll come to Ramstein,” he said.
“Funny, Zach, but, seriously, that makes no sense.”
Zach said, “You keep fending me off, Brigid. Why? You know you want to see me. I’ve grown a beard.”
I told him that I was the guest of the U.S. Air Force at present, and I sketched in some of what had gone down in Magwi. After answering a couple of questions, I changed the subject by asking Zach to tell me about his New York assignment.
“I’m tailing the Yankees. It’s that time of year.”